A Tuckerism is the practice among professional authors of using their friends' names for characters in stories they are writing, Bob Tucker being a leading exponent of this sort of thing which he also originated in 1945 when he used the names of several fans in his novel The Chinese Doll.

Note that this is different than a roman a clef where the fiction is in some fashion about the real person or a story where the fictional character resembles the real person in appearance or behavior or background. In a tuckerization, only the real person's name is used — the fictional character does not otherwise resemble the real person.

It is common for a writer to donate a tuckerization to a charity auction, where he offers to use the name of the highest bidder in an upcoming book, perhaps as a minion to the chief villain.